Peter Dutton is doing a bang-up job of making himself unelectable when all he needs to do to win power is cut immigration and federal spending while promising rate cuts:
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has conceded the Coalition’s nuclear energy plan relies on many of Australia’s ageing coal-fired power stations running for at least another 12 years, which is a timeframe most energy experts agree will not work because most will be shut down by 2035.
Gas power would also be “a huge feature” of the energy mix under a Coalition government, Mr Dutton said, confirming the fears of critics that the nuclear policy would mean significantly extending the use of fossil fuels.
In a major speech on Monday, he again refused to release details on costings of the nuclear plan – which many experts argue will be more expensive and take more time than the Coalition expects – but promised they would be released well ahead of the next election, due by May.
- Whatever the cost estimates are, triple them. We can’t build roads without massive cost blowouts. How is the government to build uber-complex nuclear power plants from the ground up?
- What is the point of making gas a huge feature of the power network if there is no plan to crush the East Coast gas cartel? This only guarantees immense energy cost inflation.
- Enduring coal power will all have to become publicly subsidised to survive as profitability evaporates.
The only reasonable point Dutton has to make is that the renewables route entails many new poles and wires (roughly 10,000km), and this cost should be included in the renewables path costings.
Building on existing power plant sites is more efficient in this sense.
But why build nuclear? Why not kill the gas cartel and convert the coal boilers to gas turbines for next to nothing? The US has done this with 200 power plants and galloped past Australian decarbonisation:
As the AEMO says, we need 26 gas power plants to support renewables anyway.
I have nothing against nuclear power and very much hope it helps the energy transition worldwide but, in Australia, it is the worst of all worlds:
- stuck with high-cost gas and publically subsidised coal;
- punt on nuclear tech we can’t handle and will cost far more and take far longer than estimates (see point 1)
- renewables stalled.
This is a recipe for the total destruction of the Australian energy market and permanent, energy-led stagflation for the economy.
It is INSANE.
